season pandemic. plus, the life and legacy of desmond tutu, the nobel peace prize winning, anti-apartheid leader with a look at how he is being remembered. live from cnn center, this is cnn newsroom with kim brunhuber. as we approach the new year, it s looking more like 2021 will end the same way it began, centered around covid. daily new cases fueled by the omicron variant are spiking. racing towards highs not seen since last january. hospitalizations are also rising, although nowhere near levels seen during recent surges. and covid-related deaths are also up. and this is the scene at testing sites around the country. look at this. long lines with people often having to wait hours to get tested. the white house is facing increased criticism over its handling of covid testing. here s what top health expert dr. anthony fauci had to say. we should be using testing much more extensively than we have, even in a situation where you have people who are vaccinated or boost
out that people on the ship had covid is because the first destination we were supposed to go to, it took we sat there for a couple of hours, and then we found out they wouldn t let us on the destination because of so many people on the ship having covid. and they just let everybody go about their business. we re also seeing more major flight disruptions as airlines deal with staffing shortages caused by covid. cnn s nadia romero is at hartsfield-jackson airport in atlanta, one of the busiest airports in the world on one of the busiest travel days of the year. thousands of flights have been canceled today. walk us through what s going on. reporter: you have all of that coming together. you have the fact that it s a sunday, people normally travel on sunday. you see higher numbers. it s the day after christmas, people have to get back to work tomorrow, and you have the omicron variant. you have all of these things all coming together, and that equals more than a thousand